Megacounties: The Boom Towns

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Some employers are attempting to import workers from the central cities, where unemployment rates can be triple those of the suburban counties. AT&T uses a fleet of buses to pick up mostly black manual workers at a subway station on the edge of Atlanta and ferry them to its plants and offices in Gwinnett County. But not many city workers can afford to drive to low-paying suburban jobs, and public transportation in most of the megacounties ranges from poor to nonexistent. In Fairfield County, traveling the 20 miles from Shelton to Norwalk means taking seven different buses and paying 75 cents on each; besides that, the schedules rarely mesh.

MIXED-UP GOVERNMENT. The power structure of megacounties is a kind of elective feudalism: a series of petty neighboring baronies lacking the authority and, frequently, the will to police development. "Essentially, we're a city without municipal governance," complains Jack Knuepfer, chairman of the Du Page County board. "We're a city with 35 municipalities, nine townships and only the Lord knows how many special districts: fire districts, sanitary districts, school districts." The county government has been unable to prevent its component communities from following what Knuepfer describes as a "beggar thy neighbor" policy.

Standout example: the village of Oak Brook does not like the glitzy 31-story office tower designed by Architect Helmut Jahn any more than Joann Murphy does. But neighboring Oakbrook Terrace gladly let a developer put it up -- right on the border between the two communities. Then Oak Brook refused to widen a road running to one side of the building, even though the developer offered to pay for the work. Its argument: Oakbrook Terrace would get all the tax advantages of the new building, so let Oakbrook Terrace widen one of its own roads and choke on the ensuing traffic. Says Oak Brook Village President Wence Cerne: "By turning residential streets into arterials, you're denigrating the quality of life. Some of these communities keep approving and approving and approving, and by the time the traffic effects are seen, it's too late."

In Orange County, Community Activist Russ Burkett grouses about inadequate funding for such basic services as police protection and sewage systems in addition to transportation. Says he: "The landholders have such powerful control that they dictate policy for the entire county. They got rich by developing the land, but now they don't want to pay for all the services we need." Burkett has formed a group, Orange County Tomorrow, that plans to initiate a ballot proposal to stop growth in areas where traffic does not move freely.